The Ball and the Cross eBook

“Mr. Turnbull,” he said, “I have
nothing to add to what I have said before. It
is strongly borne in upon me that you and I, the sole
occupants of this runaway cab, are at this moment the
two most important people in London, possibly in Europe.
I have been looking at all the streets as we went
past, I have been looking at all the shops as we went
past, I have been looking at all the churches as we
went past. At first, I felt a little dazed with
the vastness of it all. I could not understand
what it all meant. But now I know exactly what
it all means. It means us. This whole
civilization is only a dream. You and I are the
realities.”

“Religious symbolism,” said Mr. Turnbull,
through the trap, “does not, as you are probably
aware, appeal ordinarily to thinkers of the school
to which I belong. But in symbolism as you use
it in this instance, I must, I think, concede a certain
truth. We must fight this thing out somewhere;
because, as you truly say, we have found each other’s
reality. We must kill each other—­or
convert each other. I used to think all Christians
were hypocrites, and I felt quite mildly towards them
really. But I know you are sincere—­and
my soul is mad against you. In the same way
you used, I suppose, to think that all atheists thought
atheism would leave them free for immorality—­and
yet in your heart you tolerated them entirely.
Now you know that I am an honest man, and
you are mad against me, as I am against you.
Yes, that’s it. You can’t be angry
with bad men. But a good man in the wrong—­why
one thirsts for his blood. Yes, you open for
me a vista of thought.”

“Don’t run into anything,” said
Evan, immovably.

“There’s something in that view of yours,
too,” said Turnbull, and shut down the trap.

They sped on through shining streets that shot by
them like arrows. Mr. Turnbull had evidently
a great deal of unused practical talent which was
unrolling itself in this ridiculous adventure.
They had got away with such stunning promptitude that
the police chase had in all probability not even properly
begun. But in case it had, the amateur cabman
chose his dizzy course through London with a strange
dexterity. He did not do what would have first
occurred to any ordinary outsider desiring to destroy
his tracks. He did not cut into by-ways or twist
his way through mean streets. His amateur common
sense told him that it was precisely the poor street,
the side street, that would be likely to remember
and report the passing of a hansom cab, like the passing
of a royal procession. He kept chiefly to the
great roads, so full of hansoms that a wilder pair
than they might easily have passed in the press.
In one of the quieter streets Evan put on his boots.

Towards the top of Albany Street the singular cabman
again opened the trap.

“Mr. MacIan,” he said, “I understand
that we have now definitely settled that in the conventional
language honour is not satisfied. Our action
must at least go further than it has gone under recent
interrupted conditions. That, I believe, is
understood.”